June 18th History
1429 The French, led by Joan of Arc, defeat the English at the Battle of Patay.
1633 In Edinburgh, Charles I is crowned King of Scotland.
1778 American War of Independence: Colonial forces enter Philadelphia following the British evacuation of more than 12,000 troops.
1812 The War of 1812 begins when the United States declares war against Great Britain.
1815 At the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon is defeated by an international army under the Duke of Wellington.
1817 In London, the opening of Waterloo Bridge across the River Thames – originally Strand Bridge but re-named in honour of the British victory at Waterloo in 1815.
1822 London unveils its first nude statue – a bronze figure of Achilles in Hyde Park by sculptor Sir Richard Westmacott. The statue later acquires a discreet fig leaf.
1863 After repeated acts of insubordination, General Ulysses S. Grant relieves General John McClernand during the siege of Vicksburg.
1864 At Petersburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant realizes the town can no longer be taken by assault and settles into a siege.
1867 Mexican Emperor Ferdinand Maximillian Josepoh is executed by firing squad following a revolution.
1873 Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote for president.
1918 Allied forces on the Western Front begin their largest counter-attack yet against the German army.
1928 Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane.
1935 Germany signs a treaty with Britain limiting the size of the German fleet to 35 percent that of the Royal Navy.
1936 Mobster Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano is found guilty on 62 counts of compulsory prostitution.
1942 The U.S. Navy commissions its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson.
1944 The U.S. First Army breaks through the German lines on the Cotentin Peninsula and cuts off the German-held port of Cherbourg.
1945 Organized Japanese resistance ends on the island of Mindanao.
1951 General Vo Nguyen Giap ends his Red River Campaign against the French in Indochina.
1953 South Korean President Syngman Rhee releases Korean non-repatriate POWs against the will of the United Nations. Following a military coup, Egypt is declared a republic.
1959 A Federal Court annuls the Arkansas law allowing school closings to prevent integration.
1963 British heavyweight champion Henry Cooper comes close to becoming world champion – knocking Cassius Clay (later Mohammed Ali) to the floor at the end of the fourth round of their world championship bout at Wembley Stadium, London. Clay wins the fight in Round Six when the referee decides the cut above Cooper’ eye is too bad for the fight to continue.
1966 Samuel Nabrit becomes the first African American to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission.
1975 In Riyadh ,Saudi Arabia, the public beheading in a shopping centre car park of Prince Faisal Ibn Musead Abdul Aziz for the murder of his uncle, King Faisal.
1979 President Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the Salt II pact to limit nuclear arms.
1983 Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
1996 Benjamin Netanyahu is sworn in as Israel’s youngest ever Prime Minister at the head of a right-wing coalition government.
1997 Sirhan Sirhan, jailed for the assassination of US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy in 1968, has his 10th appeal for parole turned down.
